


no drama just comedy

by domremus, orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, British Comedy, Comedy, M/M, and james acaster, comedian conor vance, comedian james, comedian peter, comedian remus, comedian sirius, coneter, jily probably, rich conor owns the comedy club, we used daniel sloss, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-15 17:16:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18503479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domremus/pseuds/domremus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: When Remus Lupin walks onto the stage, Sirius almost has an aneurysm. He’s tall and his hair is golden under the lights and the way his hand wraps around the microphone makes Sirius want to shout obscenities from his seat. When he opens his mouth to speak, Sirius narrows his eyes, daring whatever deity brought this man within ten feet of him to make him any more perfect because, damnit, he’s Welsh.au where the marauders are comedians and play at the same club.





	1. we all know how easily the catholics forgive pedophilia

Remus likes the way that Conor walks out onto the stage like he owns the place. He does, but Remus had picked up his special one morning last week after a particularly disappointing one night stand. The DVD sat in the window of some charity shop that he doesn’t remember the name of and could probably never find again. It wasn’t displayed nicely like the  _ Friends  _ boxset or the chipped ukulele, just thrown on the top of a pile in the corner, probably not even meant to be displayed. Conor’s face had looked up at him, seeming to whisper ‘I invited you to play at my club on Tuesday and you barely know who I am.’ Remus had handed £3 to the bored looking teen at the counter and spent an hour of his morning watching Conor walk across that stage like he owned the place. So, he knows that Conor walks like that everywhere. 

“Hello. I’m Conor Vance and I’m the 26-year-old who last week put mouthwash on his penis,” Conor opens, flashing a grin at the audience, “Just going to let that sink in, much like I did at the time.” He pauses to allow the audience to laugh, and Remus thinks this story probably isn’t true, although he wouldn’t be completely surprised if it was.  

“I’ll give you the story. I was in a nightclub.” Conor pauses as a single snort comes from somewhere to Remus’ left. “I didn’t do it there, I’m not a total weirdo,” he directs at the snorter. “Just like,’ he starts as he mimes shaking a bottle onto his crotch with one hand while pumping his fist to imaginary music with the other, “freshen your breath M’lady?”

“Anyway, in this particular nightclub is a woman who’s willing to fuck me. Women who are willing to fuck me – very rare creatures. They’re a lot like unicorns. You have to approach them very slowly, very quietly. Have a net.” Looking at Conor’s face, Remus knows this is a purely humorous statement.

“We get chatting, we get flirting, we get drinking. About two hours later she’s like, ‘So, what do I have to say to get you into bed?’ and I was like, ‘That.’ Fucking nailed it in one. Did you practice that in front of a mirror? That was immaculate. So, we go back to my place and we’re about to get down to the…” Conor trails off, seemingly searching for the right words. Instead of saying any words at all, though, he proceeds to emit long, drawn out noises, all the while grimacing. “Sorry, I always find it weird talking about sex on stage, not because I’m not CRUSHING IT,” he shouts suddenly, tensing his arms in front of his body and quite possibly frightening a shaken looking girl in the front row, “but just because I’m very aware that this is my face. It’s not a good face for sex stories, it’s too young, look at this baby face.” He points, circling his finger around his face. “I’m 26 and not a fucking hair.”

“Anyway, I realised that because I’ve been in a nightclub for a couple of hours, because it was a hot, sweaty, underground nightclub and because obviously I had been throwing shapes.” Conor emphasises the last words by moving his arms in a way that, frankly, barely resembles dancing at all. “If you’re not laughing, it’s because you’re turned on.”

“I realised that I was no longer, you know, pristine, with my little ‘cocknor’.” Remus huffs a laugh, following it up with a cough that he attempts to suppress. He casts his mind to the pack of cigarettes in his pocket and contemplates quitting for a second, but only for a second.

“I decided to excuse myself, to go into the bathroom to do the ‘Gentleman’s Wash’ that we sometimes do just before sex in the sink to make sure it’s all fresh and-” He stops abruptly, looking out into the audience before pointing at no one in particular. “Fuck you to every guy that just bailed on me. You absolute full of shit  _ liars _ . Sitting beside your partners like, ‘I’ve got no idea what he’s talking about.’ I know every single man in this room has washed his dick in a sink. That is a fact. Lie to your partners, do not lie to me. I know you. You’ve all got the same brain as I do. One day, you walked into the bathroom and saw the sink and went, ‘Why is it that height?’ That’s why it’s that height. If it was only for your hands it’d be up here so you could see the dirt.” He mimes washing his hands just inches away from his face. “But it’s not, is it? It’s in no man’s land. Choose your own adventure.” Conor clearly feels like that joke was so good that he has enough time to take a swig from the bottle of water at the edge of the stage before the audience has calmed down. 

“So,” he continues after gulping down half the bottle and throwing it back onto the floor, not bothering to make sure it landed upright, “I’m in there, sprucing the place up and I was very,  _ very  _ drunk. My drunk brain saw the mouthwash and went, ‘Oh, that tastes  _ way  _ better than soap!’” He pauses before his next sentence. “And he had a point.”

“The smart part of my brain wasn’t there to tell me I was being a fuckhead. The smart part of my brain was also drunk and sat in that meeting. He was just sat there like ‘That is a fucking excellent idea. Chivalry is not dead.”

“So, having consulted both of my brain cells, we decided to go ahead with the endeavour. I thought, the best way to do it is-” He begins to mime once more, but seems to decide that further explanation is necessary. “I can’t just free pour, I’m not made of money. The best way, economically, was to- you know, like aftershave.” Conor then places the microphone between his legs, clearly a stand in for the body part in question, and shakes an imaginary bottle into his hands before rubbing them together and tapping them into the microphone. Looking straight out into the audience, he then reaches a hand behind himself and taps there. “You never know,” he says before pausing to let the audience react, “If your girlfriend laughed at that joke, you’re a lucky man.”

“There are only two things I’d not really thought of, only two, you’d be surprised to hear. The first was that, well, the, uh, the sensations. It was like, burn-y and cold at the same time. I don’t know if you’ve ever fucked a microwave in a blizzard, but it’s unusual.” He giggles slightly at his own joke, crinkles forming at the corners of his eyes.

“The other thing my tiny little man brain had not thought through was that, well, she was going to notice, because that’s not what penis’ taste like. Like, she wasn’t going to get down there and be like ‘Oh, oh no, a mint one, of course, yay! Oh, I love when this happens! In school, we’re taught that one in ten men have a minty dick. I thought that was just an expression, but here he is, lord of the mint cock.’ She didn’t say anything though, bless her cotton socks.” Remus chooses now to check his phone, finding that it’s about time to start moving towards the stage before he’s called onto it. He weaves through the tables and around the side of the stage, still listening to the end of Conor’s set.

“Well, there was one point during the,” Conor begins to make noises again, “the, uh, the  _ blowjizzle _ . Like thirty seconds in she kind of just went-” Remus doesn’t see the action Conor makes to demonstrate as he moves towards the right side of the stage, just out of view, but it doesn’t take much imagination.

“Better than the alternative,” Conor continues, “a penis flavoured penis.” The audience laugh and Conor turns to look at Remus, and then back to the audience. “Anyway, on to our first act proper. Unlike my dick - clean because I covered it in mouthwash again just moments before I walked on stage - Remus lupin is one dirty bastard!” Remus grins as he steps out onto the stage to scattered applause, taking the microphone from Conor.

 

 

When Remus Lupin walks onto the stage, Sirius almost has an aneurysm. He’s tall and his hair is golden under the lights and the way his hand wraps around the microphone makes Sirius want to shout obscenities from his seat. When he opens his mouth to speak, Sirius narrows his eyes, daring whatever deity brought this man within ten feet of him to make him any more perfect because, damnit,  _ he’s Welsh. _

“I’m just looking into the crowd to see if there are any kids, ”  Remus opens with his dumb accent, “No, I’m not a pedophile.” He pauses as the audience laughs. “It’s just, sometimes kids come to this kind of thing with their parents. I just think, you know, it’s late, Conor’s routine wasn’t exactly kid friendly, there shouldn’t be any kids in here.” He nods to the audience as if he’s asking for their agreement, but continues immediately. “Now, I’m not a parent, but I do like speaking on behalf of people, because I’m a white, cisgender male, and that’s what my people do.” Sirius would like to think that ‘heterosexual’ was purposefully omitted, but he can’t be sure.

“I imagine Christmas morning as a parent is very difficult, especially if you have young children. It’s Christmas morning, it’s 7am – I know, that time exists! Wild.” Remus Lupin definitely looks like the kind of person who is nocturnal and spends the nights getting alcohol poisoning, lung cancer and STDs. “They burst out of their rooms, they run downstairs. They’re so happy. They’re so filled with joy. It’s Christmas day! It’s the most magical day of the year. To them, magic literally happened overnight. They wished for shit, shits there.” He turns to the audience, holding his arms out, as though bewildered. “What the fuck? That’s insane. I’m 7 years old, but I’m pretty sure that tree shits presents.” He points to an imaginary tree and Sirius’ eyes linger on his hand and outstretched arm.

“But, as a parent you know, the time, the money, the organisation, the stress that’s gone into making this moment so special. But, when you see that smile on their stupid fucking face, it makes it all worth it. Then, they look at you with those big blue eyes that you hope resemble yours, and who do they thank?” He pauses for a second. “Santa. Thank you, Santa for these presents. Mummy and daddy, isn’t Santa amazing?”

“And, as a parent not wanting to shatter your child’s imagination, you must have to stand there, like, ‘Yeah, yeah, he worked really hard this year, didn’t he? The fat fuck. You know that disappointment that parents feel in that moment? That is exactly how doctors feel whenever you thank God.” Remus’ face adopts a little satisfied smirk at the reaction from the audience, which is one of both laughter and noises of surprise at ‘terrible blasphemy’ he’s just committed. Sirius knows that his parents would  _ not _ condone this kind of humour and, honestly, that just makes Remus hotter. 

“Mr Darcy, we are delighted to announce that your cancer has gone into remission,” Remus says in a softer voice, looking into his palm as though he’s reading, playing the part of a doctor.

“Oh my god, this is wonderful news,” he replies to himself, faking some tears. 

“I know. It’s been a long, hard journey, but we got there in the end and we all couldn’t, couldn’t be happier for you.” 

“Thank the Lord,” Remus says with a voice full of emotion before immediately returning to a deadpan expression.

“What? No, sorry. It’s just funny. I just couldn’t see his name anywhere on this fucking chart.” He waves his hand in the direction of the audience, using it as a prop chart. “I can see my name right at the top there, ’Doctor Michaels’, sat with you through two and a half weeks of chemotherapy. You’re welcome, by the way. ‘Doctor Connors’, her name’s there. She spent 6 hours cutting a tumour out of your fucking lung. I’ve got the names of all the nurses and all the radiologists here, can’t seem to find the Lord’s name anywhere on it. I’ll tell you what, maybe in my haste to give you the good news, maybe I skimmed past it, I’ll have another- I’ll have another look.” He says, louder at the end as if he’s talking over someone. Remus spends the next thirty seconds flipping the imaginary pages of his hand/chart, scanning it intently. “Ah, look at that. No God.”

“Yes, but the Lord sent you.” He counters to himself, pressing his hands together in mock prayer.

“I don’t think he did. He certainly didn’t chip in for that medical degree. If I remember correctly: you came to me, I diagnosed you and I specified the treatment. In fact, if I cast my mind even further back. He’s the one that gave you cancer.” Remus ends his sentence slowly, looking up from his hand and into the crowd with a smile spreading across his face. “Why?” he finishes, “Maybe because you’re an ungrateful cunt.” The crowd laughs and Remus takes this opportunity to untangle the wire that leads to the microphone where it lies on the floor so that he can move a bit more freely. 

“I did this joke to a crowd apparently more religious than yourselves, some people walked out,” he begins, no longer playing a character, but just sounding stupid and Welsh and like he just smoked 20 cigarettes and Sirius thinks of what Remus’ voice would sound like if it was a whisper in his ear. “I’m not proud of it,” he continues. “Actually, let me clarify, I’m not proud of the reaction. I’m very proud of the joke, it’s fucking excellent. I did it along with a bunch of pedophile jokes, which have since been taken out, but they didn’t have a problem with that. Then again, we all know how easily the catholics forgive pedophilia.” 

Remus thanks the crowd and walks off the stage, but Sirius isn’t paying attention to what he’s saying, just the way his mouth moves and the way he pushes his hair away from his forehead and grabs a bottle of water from someone just out of view. It takes Conor saying his name for him to remember that this is his introduction, and he should probably be on stage an about 3 seconds. As Sirius trips up the steps to the stage, he spots Remus chatting to one of the sound girls, his hand touching her shoulder. 

“Hi,” Sirius lets out, not entirely sure where he’s going with this, “Good set.”

“Oh,” Remus says, turning around to face Sirius, “thank you!” Sirius thinks his voice is far too cheerful for his sense of humour and overall demeanor, but he’s late and doesn’t have time to question it. He just points to the stage and Remus nods, flashing him a smile. 

“Good luck,” Remus calls after him as he steps into the view of the audience. 

Sirius stumbles onto the stage, very aware that he’s still got his eye on Remus even as he makes his way onto the stage.

“Get a load of that guy! Fucking tall, Welsh, huge hands, anyone else thinking about how gladly they’d let him absolutely wreck them?” Sirius asks the crowd, pulling the mic off of the stand, weighing it in his hand. He flashes the crowd a dazzling smile, figuring that at this point, Remus is very likely somewhere in the crowd. “Hi, I’m Sirius Black.”


	2. two tales of yoghurt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter two boys, pls enjoy

James never means to be late to gigs he’s invited to perform at, but his tardiness somehow manages to happen surprisingly frequently for the son of Euphemia Potter, most punctual woman alive. He’s not late, technically, the guy performing before him seems to have just started, but he’d meant to get there early enough to see everyone’s. Oh, well. He finds a seat surprisingly close to the front and makes his way toward it as quietly as possible, which, for James, just means that he tries and fails to keep his tripping over his own feet to a minimum.

The guy onstage - James heard him say his name was Sirius Black as he was walking in, but he’s not sure if it’s a stage name or not - is very unashamedly flirting with a man a few feet away from where James is sat, and normally James would see that as an odd way to start off a show, but Sirius seems to make it work.

“Sorry, usually I save the gay bits for the end of my set, but  _ holy shit,”  _ Sirius says, and James’ eyes drift to the man once more. He looks as though he’s thoroughly enjoying Sirius’ commentary, and James can’t help but feel proud for Sirius, despite having never even spoken to the man. “Anyway. Now that I’ve embarrassed myself,” Sirius says, pausing to look down at his watchless wrist, as if checking how long he’d been onstage, “not even five minutes into my set, I suppose I should probably get on with it. Getting paid to be funny, not to flirt. Though, one wonders, why not both?”

Sirius grimaces at that, and pauses for a moment. He walks the length of the stage, seemingly sizing up his audience, before deciding to pick on a burly man sitting to James’ left, pointing at him. “Now, I know, I know what you’re thinking. Who’s that posh fucker?”

The man lets out a laugh that suggests that Sirius’ guess as to his line of thinking was pretty accurate, and Sirius smirks at him, nodding once.

“See, I can’t change my voice. I’m stuck with it. It’s not,” he says, gesturing vaguely to his throat,  “a particularly intimidating voice. It’s hard to sound assertive with a voice like this.” He doesn’t have a bad voice, James thinks. He can tell that Sirius definitely grew up well off, his voice informs of that much, but he doesn’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing.

Sirius immediately launches into a story, voice growing louder as he seems to pick up steam. “So I was in the cinema the other day and behind me in this cinema were these two youths, about thirteen or fourteen years old,” he begins, using his thumb to point behind himself unnecessarily. “Hooded ne’er-do-wells,” he adds, and this description of said youths earns quite a laugh from the audience, during which Sirius takes a moment to sip from the glass of water he’d sat on the stool by the mic. 

“Anyway, they were talking very loudly, these rude boys,” Sirius continues, setting the glass back down. “They were having what I would like to term as a ‘Rude Boy Cinema Club.’” Sirius’ very technical term elicits laughs from the audience and he points in the general direction of the crowd. “Laugh,” he says, biting back a smile, “Laugh all you want, it’s what I call it.”

He waves his hand in dismissal, signifying that he doesn’t care about their laughter, and goes on. “So, as I was saying, ‘Rude Boy Cinema Club.’ It went a little bit like this.” 

He takes a step back, turning slightly toward the center of the stage, as if he’s speaking to somebody, and coughs dramatically. “Sorry, getting into character,” he stage-whispers into the mic, and James has to laugh at that. He coughs once more and raises the mic. “‘Aye, bruv guess what I seen the other day on DVD,’ first kid says,” Sirius says, voice significantly different from what it once was. He makes a show of turning to the other side, raising the mic once more and adding another whispered “Right, this is the other one now” before lowering the mic to mimic the other kid. “‘What you seen on DVD, man?’” He turns again, continues, “‘I seen the Iron Lady.’” Turns once more, “‘Was it any good, bled?’” And one more time, “‘Nah, it’s shit. It’s nothing like Iron Man.’”

Sirius returns to his spot in the center of the stage, bowing slightly after his dramatic recreation. “So, I’m sure you lot know by now that I am a very kind, very generous, very humble, very brilliant, very all-around excellent person - looking at you, Remus,” Sirius says, winking at the guy he’d previously been flirting with. James thinks that Sirius’s forwardness is ballsy, but he can also tell that Remus is entirely into it, so hey, good for the two of them, he guesses. “Me, being the fantastic person I am, I was like, ‘I’m going to have to nip this one in the bud for the good of the rest of the cinema.’ Not for me, for them, I’m a saint. So I turned around - I was so polite to these young gentlemen - I was like ‘I’m awfully sorry, chaps, but is there any chance that when the film actually starts, we could bring this tête-à-tête to a rather swift conclusion?’”

Sirius takes a step back once more, shaking his head. “13 year old boy, in my face: ‘Nah, shut up, Downton Abbey,’” he says, making a face. He raises his brows, sucks in his teeth, and uses his free hand to scratch the back of his neck. “‘Downton Abbey!’ 

Sirius shakes his head, letting out a satisfied sigh. “Alright, sorry, where was I... I’m very posh, can’t help it, grew up rich, it’s a tragedy, I know...okay, right, there I was. Now, I’m quite posh and I have quite a posh family and stuff and we used to fly a lot. Just rich people things, you know,” he says, waving his hand in dismissal. James snorts at that, the way he dismisses his upbringing as if it were an inconvenience. 

“I forgot how  _ terrifying  _ it is,” Sirius says, shifting the mic from one hand to the other. “I was actually on a plane the other day and I was doing something we have all done loads of times before: lifting up the blind for take-off and landing,” he pauses to mimic lifting the blind up, acting out the blind getting caught halfway and pretends to tug on it, then successfully pulls the blind the rest of the way, casting his hand out to showcase his invisible handiwork. 

“For the first time ever, I decided I would ask the stewardess  _ why  _ I had to lift up the blind for take-off and landing,” he goes on, with a smile. “It is a question that  _ I regret asking,  _ because this is the genuine reason,” he says, pausing for a moment to build tension.

“I said ‘Madame, out of curiosity _why_ do I have to lift up the blind for take-off and landing?’” He says, upping his poshness, if that’s even possible. “She looked at me, do you know what she said? She went ‘Well, sir, if something were to go wrong with the engine. Then, _you_ are the pilot’s eyes.’” His voice comes out higher as he imitates. 

Sirius looks out into the crowd, eyes widening dramatically. He blinks out at the crowd, trying hard not to laugh. “‘I beg your pardon. I’m not ready for that level of responsibility, and no one told me that when I purchased the ticket. I was very much led to believe that I was travelling in the capacity of passenger, not bloody co-pilot! Also, I think you may have picked the wrong guy, let’s look at the evidence here.’” Sirius begins counting off the evidence on his fingers, ‘“I’ve had a sleeping pill, two glasses of red wine and I just cried while watching the Lion King. I’m not your man. And how does this scenario play out in your head? As we’re nosediving towards the ground, I look out of the window and see smoke billowing from the engine. I’m meant to, what?’” Sirius questions. “‘Just amble up to the cockpit, pop my head through the door,” He strolls across the stage and acting out his words, “‘Awfully sorry gents, your eyes in the back here, I don’t know whether you’re aware of this but one of the wings has fallen off. You might want to buckle up. I’ll send a flight attendant through to show you how it’s done, thank you.’” 

Sirius straightens. “That made it sound like I said something to the stewardess. Obviously, I didn’t actually complain, I  _ am  _ British,” he concedes. 

With that, Sirius leans forward to set the mic back onto the stand, beaming at the crowd staring back up at him, seemingly hanging onto to his every word. “You’ve been lovely, and I am done, sort of, but I  _ did _ say I usually save gay bits for the end, so I’d just like to conclude by saying that I was entirely serious,” Sirius pauses to laugh, pointing to himself, “my name. I was entirely serious about all the flirting, and my offer still stands. Alright. Thank you, goodnight!” 

It takes James a moment to register that the end of Sirius’ set marks the beginning of his. He’s meant to take the stage now, and he’s made the mistake of not being ready to do so. He tries his best to get to the side of the stage as quickly as he can, taking the mic from Sirius with a smile and a whispered thanks. 

  
  


Peter is honestly surprised at how much he’s laughed tonight. Usually, at this type of thing, he would note that some of the jokes feel forced and the transitions seem sketchy, but he is genuinely enjoying the talent. The first guy, the opener with the nice laugh and even nicer smile, had Peter coughing into his drink, and the others had managed to make his stomach hurt from laughing over the course of the night. This means, though, that Peter has high expectations for the next guy, and he hopes he delivers.

“Hello!” the man on stage greets the audience, drawing out the last sound. He’s loud and cheerful and Peter can’t help but be swept up in his excitement. “My name is James Potter, thank you for having me,” he says, grinning at the politely applauding audience. 

“Anyone feel like a nice bedtime story?” he asks the crowd, his tone suggesting that it’s going to be anything but relaxing. The audience responds with some scattered cheers. “Alright, before we begin, you need to know two things about me going into this story: I bear a lot of grudges, and I love French cuisine.” He lifts his fingers to his lips and kisses them with an exaggerated noise.

“That’s why this story takes place in Pret a Manger,” he announces, holding his arms out as if inviting the audience to applaud, but he’s met with only laughter. “Have you been there?  _ Mama mia! _ I love manger-ing there, there’s so much stuff to manger. I love to manger in Pret a Manger.” He beams down at the audience, far more amused by himself than anyone else in the crowd is. 

“I think my favourite thing to manger is the yoghurts. They’re in a pot and it’s, like, granola on top and then mainly yoghurt and then fruit compote at the bottom,” he explains, miming the layers of the yoghurt, “you know, the way they eat it in  _ Paris _ .” he says, the last word accompanied by a  _ very  _ exaggerated and  _ very _ inaccurate French accent. 

“You get a spoon and you mix it all together and manger it that way.” The audience laughs again at the use of the word ‘manger,’ and James pauses, struggling not to laugh along with them at the repeated use of the word. “Well, I don’t actually mix it. I just leave it as it is and I work my way down in order. I start off with nothing but granola, just shovelling raw granola into my mouth, deflecting off my teeth this way and that.” He holds up an imaginary yogurt pot and moves his hand from the pot to his face erratically, signifying the movement of the spoon. “Then, I power through the yogurt for a really long time, getting precious little out of it, if I’m being honest, it’s a real trudge. Then, I end on the tangy compote like ‘Woah, what a finale!’”

“I went into Pret a Manger one day, all I wanted was a banana. That’s all I wanted to manger–” He pauses once more as the audience laughs again at the word. “Doesn’t ever get less funny, that,” he points out, smiling. He’s right, Peter thinks, wishing he had thought of that, it’s  _ gold _ . 

“So, I got a banana, put it on the counter. I said, ‘Just that,” he pauses, “‘s’il vous plait.’” He finishes, holding his hands out, making a gesture that seems to say ‘obviously.’ “Make the effort in Pret a Manger.” 

“The lady behind the counter goes ‘Oh! We’re giving away free bananas today.’” His eyes widen in mock surprise, and his brows shoot up. He was clearly, reasonably, very excited by the offer of a free banana at the time, and he wants the audience to know this. “I picked up the banana, turned to leave,” he says, picking up an invisible banana and miming leaving the store, walking to the other side of the stage, lifting his legs far too high to be natural. “She goes, ‘Hold on a second. Where are you going? I said we were giving away free bananas; I didn’t say that  _ all  _ of the bananas are free.’” He opens his mouth and looks into the audience, shaking his head.

“How unnecessary! I don’t know what I’ve done to offend this woman in the past, but she’s laid a language loophole for me and I’ve fallen for it,” James says, taking a moment to untangle the mic wire that had somehow become slightly wrapped around his leg. He looks up at the audience, staring directly into the crowd and continues as if it hadn’t happened, “Hook, line and sinker.” 

“I wasn’t going to rise to it, though. I stayed very calm and said ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Which of the bananas are free?’” He pauses, raising his eyebrows at the audience. “As soon as I asked that, I think it highlighted how  _ insane  _ it would have been had that been my initial response.”

“If someone says to you, ‘We’re giving away free bananas today,’ and without question you go, ‘ _ which specific ones _ ?’” he says, putting on a raspy, gremlin-esque voice, “‘looking at this box of bananas I want to know which specific ones the offer applies to. It can’t be all of them, we’re not living in a fantasy land. This isn’t my dreams.’” The last word comes out as a cough as the voice becomes too much. 

“So, ‘which bananas are free?’” He reminds the audience. “Her eyes lit up; she couldn’t wait to tell me which bananas were free. She goes, ‘These ones.’” He points to the left of the stage. “She pointed at this pile of  _ jet-black  _ bananas, black as the night sky. They were wobbling as well, there were no solids in those skins.” He stops to remove his jacket, throwing it to the side of the stage. There’s a distinct ‘woop’ sound from somewhere to Peter’s right, and James winks. “Sorry, this story just gets me  _ riled up. _ ”

“Now, I don’t want to manger no dead banana. I turned down the offer and I paid full price for my yellow banana.” He nods once, confident that the audience is in agreement with his choice. “As I’m handing her the money, she does this thing where - clearly what she wanted to do was look at someone and roll her eyes at the guy paying full price for a banana, but no one else was around so she looked at me and went,” he rolls his eyes dramatically, drawing out for at least ten seconds before stopping abruptly, “‘oh, no, that’s the guy.’”

“I’m almost at the door, nearly home free, hand on the handle, when I hear her mutter to herself,” James closes his eyes and wipes a hand over his face to calm himself down, “and this still boils my blood to this day – under her breath, she goes, ‘Hmm, he thinks he’s too good for a free banana.’” He imitates, voice unnaturally high. 

“NEVER BEFORE,” He shouts, causing a couple of people to jump. “Never before have I been  _ so offended _ by something I 100% agree with. Yeah, I am too good for a free banana, actually. We all are, aren’t we? If you’re sitting there thinking, ‘I’m not,’ believe in yourself a little bit. It is a banana; it is a  _ banana _ .” 

“I couldn’t get it out of my head. Days, weeks, months went by. I went past Pret-a-Manger nine months later and looked in the window. The bananas were gone at this point. Frankly, I was surprised. I half expected them to have been decanted into a paddling pool with a sign stuck in them that said, ‘Free Smoothies,’ so people could drag their cups through the mush and leave.” The audience groans as James mimes dragging the cup through the banana and pouring it onto his face. ‘Oh, Pret-a-Manger your generosity continues to astound us,” he spits.

“The bananas were gone, but my nemesis was not. She was standing behind the counter, handing someone a Danish, like a prick,” he says, making a face. “I knew I had to get revenge and I know exactly how I’m going to do it now.” He looks into the audience with a mischievous grin.

“Step one: I’m going to open my own banana shop, in her neck of the woods. All we sell is bananas. Sooner or later, she’s going to go in. Because, let’s face it, a shop opens in your neck of the woods that  _ only  _ sells bananas and nothing else, you’re going to go in at some point just to see,” he says as if it’s obvious. “Does it really only sell bananas?” he questions, voice suspicious.

“Once you’re in the shop that sells bananas, you have to buy a banana. Because, only a maniac would go into a shop that only sells bananas and go, ‘I’m sorry, you haven’t got what I’m looking for,’ and then  _ leave _ ,” he says loudly. “I’ve got her where I want her now. She’ll come in, pick up a banana, put it on the counter. She’ll go, ‘Just that please,’ and I’ll go, ‘Oh! We’re giving away free bananas today.’” The audience chuckles and James smirks. 

“She’ll go, ‘Oh, which ones are free?’” James makes a gesture with his hand as if to say that this would be her obvious response. “Because, let’s face it, I’m not going to trip her up at this hurdle, she invented this trick,” he says with a shrug. “I’ll say, ‘All of them. All of the bananas are free.’” He holds his arms out and waves them around, indicating to the shop full of free bananas.

“Against her better instincts, she’ll pick up the banana, say ‘thanks very much,’ and turn to leave. Just as I’m out of her peripheral, I’ll go,” he giggles, putting on a fake stutter, “‘H-hold on a second! Where are you going? I said all of the bananas were free, I  _ didn’t  _ say that all of the bananas were free _ to everybody _ .’” He laughs exaggeratedly, like an evil villain.

“She’ll be all angry, she’ll go, ‘Who are they free to, then?’ and then, here’s the kicker. I say, ‘me,’ and then I eat all of the bananas.” He grips the microphone and runs in circles around the stage, wire in his other hand so as to prevent himself from nearly tripping again. “Just doing laps of the shop, hoofing them into my mouth, making little disturbing noises as well – I haven’t worked on them yet, but I’m going to work on it and get some disturbing noises going – and then she’ll be all flustered, she’ll be like, ‘Who are you? Why are you doing this?’” he says, shielding his face with his hands. 

“I’ll have taken off my disguise – I was wearing a disguise all along – and I’ll go, ‘It’s me! Boom! Who’s too good for a free banana now?’” With this, James drops the microphone confidently, but winces as it makes a  _ thud _ . 

Peter concludes that this is the end of James’ set, and begins to stand, making his way towards the curtains that hide the side of the stage.

“Sorry!” He calls to the side of the stage, voice significantly quieter without the amplification. Once he has picked up the microphone again, he needlessly brushes it off and holds it back to his mouth. “Sorry, sorry. Thank you so much!” 

James hands the microphone to Peter and makes a leap for backstage before quickly doubling back to reclaim his jacket.

 

 

When Conor had looked into finding people for a comedy night, he hadn’t looked all that hard. He’d wanted a good show, sure, but he also wasn’t all that concerned. He’d watched a few clips of each of the four’s sets he’d found online before inviting them, and they’d been good clips, so he’d been confident that the show would go over well. He’d known it would go over well, but he hadn’t expected it to go nearly as well as it had. The three who’d already performed had been hilarious, and he was sure the final one, the one he’d spent a bit more time researching for entirely professional reasons, would be just as big a hit with the crowd.

Conor had taken a seat at the bar after he’d finished his own set, and Val had been sending various singles she deemed fit in his direction since he’d sat down. He’d told her he had a plan for the night, that he appreciated the fact that she was acting as his unneeded wingman, but that it was just that: unneeded. This last comedian, the one currently walking onto the stage, had caught his eye, and he planned to see this through.

Peter had taken the mic from James with a smile that made Conor want to cut his set short and ask him out right then and there - he refrained, of course, but the thought had crossed his mind - and took the stage, waving at the audience. “Hi!” he greets, “I’m Peter, and I know my whole…,” he trails off, looking for the right word. He continues, using his free hand to vaguely circle himself to emphasize his point, “aura doesn’t exactly scream party animal, but I’d like you all to know that I party. Hard. And frequently.” He pauses, endlessly amused by his exaggerations. “Life of the party, I am. Whenever there’s a party, loud and full of drunk idiots who have no idea where they are, you can find me, right in the middle of the crowd, going hard. Doing body shots, fucking bitches, etcetera, etcetera.” 

He makes a gesture with his hand as if to say ‘what can you do,’ and jumps into his story. “I met a woman at a party, one of the many, many parties I’ve been to, and she said to me, ‘I can tell you what your spirit animal is, Pete,’” he pauses dramatically, as if to prepare the audience for whatever his spirit animal may be. “Any guesses?” he asks of the crowd. A woman who had definitely had far too much to drink cheers at his question, a gleeful, indecipherable shout, and Peter snorts at that. “Close!” he says, pointing in the woman’s direction. “This woman came up to me at this party, some woman I’ve never met before, and without prompting, informed me that my spirit animal is a  _ rat, _ ” The audience laughs at that, and Peter grins, shaking his head in disbelief. 

“Well, what do I do with this information, Janet? This is useless,” he says, frowning out at the audience. “She said, ‘Rat will tell you to do things and you should listen to that inner voice, to that inner rat,’” he says, voice higher in a poor impersonation of the woman. “I shouldn’t listen to my inner voice because it is normally things like, ‘Kick that toddler!’ Just a stream of unacceptable things,” he adds, voice back to normal. “And then she said, ‘I’d normally charge for this service. It is normally £30, but as we’re at a party, I’ll do it for half price. I’ll do it for 15.’”  His eyes widen as he looks out into the crowd. “I was like, ‘Rat says you can piss off.’” 

Peter shakes his head once more in amusement, looking down at his hand holding the mic. “The next day, I found this rat ring online by chance, after searching four hours for one. Since I’ve been wearing it, friends of mine think that it’s changed me,” he explains, switching the mic into his other hand so that he can display his ring. He switches the mic back after what he believes is a long enough period in which the entirety of the audience has had time to enjoy the ring in all its glory. “They think that I go into myself at social occasions and that it’s me going, ‘What did you say rat? I couldn’t possibly kill another prostitute.’ You know, silly things,” he says with a laugh, following it up with a moment of staring out into the crowd. 

“I’ve noticed that Rat comes out with real jobs-worths,” he says, finally blinking. You know that app where you can pay for parking and you don’t need to buy a ticket? I tried it for the first time - you put the location code in. I put the code in, went into a nearby coffee shop, had just got my coffee and a parking enforcement officer was next to my car. That’s what they call themselves, with his ‘little computer with a pen on a string in case I drop it’,” he imitates the officer, before adding a quick, “dickhead.” 

“He was putting my details in! So, I went out to him and I said, ‘I’ve paid for parking. Look, I’ve got a receipt on my phone. It was eight minutes ago.’ He looked at it and he went, ‘No. This location code is for Leeds,’” Pete says, putting on his parking enforcement officer voice again. “I said, ‘Well, I’ve clearly just made a mistake, haven’t I?’ and he went, ‘Well, I don’t know that, do I?’” Peter pauses in his storytelling, amazed by the officer’s skepticism. He lets out a huff of breath and continues. “I was like, ‘Yes, you do. Because if I’m lying then what you’re suggesting I’ve done is  _ parked in Leeds  _ and then driven 197 miles in 8 minutes. That’s what you’re suggesting I’ve done.”

“‘I’ve put it into the computer now, you’ll have to complain at the office. It’s only 5 minutes down the road.’ ‘Actually, it’s about 3 seconds in my hyper-car,’” Peter says, pointing his thumb behind him as if he were pointing at his car.

“I got to the office, met sweaty Sharon.” Peter pauses for a second to gasp, “Oh my god, it was so hot in that office. She looked like a bit of wet scrambled egg in a chair. Just, so annoyed with life. She was talking to someone in the back office when I went in. She was going, ‘Is that you making me a cup of tea, Steve?’ and then she looked at me and went, ‘The day I hear Steve making me a cup of tea is the day I hear a rocking horse do a plop.’” He makes a face at that.

“That’s the weirdest imagery I’ve ever heard. I explain the situation to her, gave her the phone and everything.” Peter uses his free hand as if it were his phone and pretends to hand it to sweaty Sharon. “She looked at the phone, looked at her computer, back at the phone and she went, ‘This says Leeds,’” he says, miming her actions.

“‘I know, Sharon. I put the wrong code in.’ ‘Well, you’ll have to complain at the Leeds office’ ‘I’ve not been in Leeds, Sharon.’ She looked again and she’s like, ‘But how did you get here so quickly? You would have had to break the speed limit.’” Peter blinks into the crowd, jaw dropped in shock. “‘I would have had to break the speed of sound, Sharon.’”

“So annoyed, so annoyed. I said, ‘Is there anyone else I can talk to about this?’ She said, ‘You can speak to Steve, over there.’” At this, Peter looks over his shoulder, as if Steve were just behind him. He turns back to the crowd, an unimpressed look spread across his features. “I decided not to speak to Steve for a number of reasons. The main one being, he was trying to eat a yoghurt with a pen lid. I just didn’t feel that he was competent. You get a sense sometimes, don’t you? So, in the end, I just had to leave, kept the fine, paid it, still got it to this day.” Peter twirls the mic chord a bit with his free hand, looking out into the audience. “After I’d left, Rat was like, ‘You idiot. You could have done anything in there. You could have killed her. The perfect alibi. Where were you when the murder happened?’” 

The audience cheers at that, and Peter does an unnecessarily dramatic bow. Conor hasn’t been paying attention to the progression of time, too enthralled by the way Peter struggled not to laugh at some of his dumber jokes, and it takes a moment for him to realize that it’s his turn once more to take the stage and thank the four men for performing, as well as the audience for not bolting halfway through. He supposes he should get up and do that, and he sets his glass down, apologizing to the girl who’d been talking at him despite his lack of interest for a good fifteen minutes. He doesn’t spare a glance at her as he stands and makes his way toward the stage, but he thinks he hears Val letting the girl down gently for him and hinting that she’d be more than willing to spend the night with her if she was interested.

Peter was just finishing thanking the audience as Conor reached the side of the stage, and he looks over at Conor with a polite smile as he catches sight of him. Conor smiles back, wide and bright, and winks at him as he takes the mic for the second time that night. He’ll have to find him later, he decides, if he doesn’t leave right away. Conor truly hopes he sticks around.

“You all enjoy that as much as I did?” Conor asks of the crowd, immediately feeling at home on the stage. It  _ was _ his home, technically, in a way. Home away from home, but his home nonetheless.

The crowd cheers in response, very clearly drunker than they’d been when he’d taken the stage earlier that night. “You’re all plastered by now, aren’t you? God, you’re a much better crowd now than you were earlier. Or perhaps I’m just nowhere near as funny as I think I am,” he says, although he doesn’t at all believe that.  _ He _ thinks he’s hilarious, and it shows in the confidence he has whenever he performs.  

“I didn’t do much research on these guys before I asked them to come, so I’m glad it worked out well,” he admits with a grin. “Not much else to say on that,” he adds, and a man sitting in the front laughs at that. “I know, a comedian with not much to say. A rarity, truly,” he laughs. “I’m going to let you all get home to your husbands or wives or fifteen cats now. Or stay, if you’re avoiding them. None of my business. Regardless, have a great night, you absolute fiends,” he says with a two-fingered salute before setting the mic back on the stand and making his way off-stage. He had a drink to finish and a cute comedian to find.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for this chapter we used content from jack whitehall and joe lycett on youtube, and then some from james acaster's series on netflix: repertoire. pls go watch that series it is, again, hilarious.
> 
> leave kudos and comments if u enjoyed we love that shit

**Author's Note:**

> hello. thank u lex for co-writing this w me and for also literally coming up w the idea. i <3 u. 
> 
> we used content from daniel sloss' special on netflix it's called 'dark' pls go watch it's hilarious
> 
> pls leave reviews we love those i'm begging.


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